To Marry The Duke (16 page)

He thrust ever so gently, and she forced herself to relax as he drove forward and broke through her maidenhead.

Sophia cried out and held tightly on to him. He went still.

“We’re not there yet, darling.” He pushed again and drove more deeply into her. She cried out again.

“It won’t hurt after this,” he whispered in her ear, dropping apologetic, affectionate kisses on her cheeks and nose and eyelids. “My darling Sophia.”

She felt a lump form in her throat with the urge to cry from the pain, but another part of her felt the most extraordinary, dreamlike joy and yearning. She longed for him to push again.

He slid all the way out—at least it felt like it, she couldn’t be sure, he was so huge inside her—then slid back in and repeated the rhythm until all the pain was gone and she was slick with moisture, feeling dazed with hot-blooded delight as he drove into her again and again.

She cried out differently this time and clung to his shoulders as he worked inside her, his hard, muscular body now growing damp with perspiration. Squeezing her eyes shut, she felt like she was touching heaven. James—her mate for all her life—had taken her there.

James felt the heat of his own orgasm approaching, centering deep in his core and dimming his sense of rational awareness. Then he climaxed and experienced an ecstasy so electrifying, so rich and new, he felt like a virgin himself. A low groan escaped him. He poured into his wife and could not for the life of him fathom the jubilation that came at him from all directions. She was so hot and tight and glorious, and she was his.

Sophia hugged him. “Oh, James.”

He realized with some uneasiness that a part of him relished the sound of his name spoken so lovingly on her lips, while another part of him tensed at her emotional abandon.

His breathing slowed and he carefully rolled off her. Sophia lay there with her head on his shoulder, sighing with contentment, rubbing her fingers over his bare chest. Then she fell asleep.

James lay still, trying not to think, trying only to sleep like he did every other night of his life, but this was not, unfortunately, every other night, and he did not want to sleep. He wanted to do one of two things— make love to his wife again and experience another brilliant, soul-blazing pinnacle, or make haste to leave her bed.

He opened his eyes to watch her resting peacefully beside him, then sat up to reach for his trousers.

Chapter 13

James had just fastened his trousers and was reaching for his shirt on the chair when he heard the bed creak and knew Sophia had awakened. Dread flooded through him. He had hoped to sneak away unnoticed.

“Where are you going?” she asked, sounding genuinely puzzled.

With his back to her, he breathed deeply to allay the frustration at having not been able to leave quietly, then he turned around and faced her with a smile. She was naked on the bed, lying on her side and resting her cheek on her hand, and she looked like an ancient goddess in the dim golden firelight. The curvaceous line of her waist and hips and legs and the triangular mass of curls at their apex distracted him for a second or two, but he quickly regained control of his thoughts. “I’m going back to my bedchamber, of course,” he explained.

“Your bedchamber? I thought this was your bedchamber. Our bedchamber.”

James stared at her wordlessly in disbelief. Perhaps, in his mad rush to marry Sophia, he had not realized the full extent of her innocence. He had known of course that she would have much to learn regarding the running of his house in Yorkshire, but this—not knowing they would have separate rooms—this was a surprise.

He buttoned his shirt as he spoke. “The duke and duchess have always had separate rooms. Did no one tell you that?”

She continued to gaze up at him with confusion. She didn’t seem to want to believe what he was telling her. “But we’re man and wife. I thought…” She hesitated for a moment, as if considering this. “But you’ll sleep here with me, won’t you? I mean, after our servants have retired.”

“You mean Mildred and Thompson.”

“Is Thompson your… ?”

“My valet, yes.” She seemed to find it unsettling that she had not known the man’s name.

“All right then, after Mildred and Thompson have retired,” she repeated for clarification. “You will be sleeping with me, won’t you?” She sat up and swung her legs over the side of the bed.

James took in the graceful way she moved, the beguiling length of her legs, the perfect fullness of her breasts now that she was no longer lying down. He noticed with a resounding report of desire that her pink nipples were soft, and he remembered how they had tasted when they were hard, how he had enjoyed flicking his tongue back and forth over them and feeling her soft, warm body melt and wiggle beneath him.

A violent compulsion to touch her again and bend to all her whims overpowered him as he gazed at her, as if he wished to adapt himself to her customs and expectations instead of the other way around. For a moment, the very common idea of sharing a bed with his wife night after night seemed intriguing. What a curious thought it was. Imagine how comfortable two people would become with each other. There would be no pretenses, no secrets—only an intimate connection that would surely deepen through the years, and a coinciding confidence in the other person’s affections.

He forced himself to tear his gaze away from her and button the last button on his shirt. He was suddenly thankful for this particular custom of his class— separate rooms. He was not sure he could handle that kind of intimacy too often. Perhaps, he thought with some curiosity, becoming too intimate and presumptuous had been his father’s downfall.

“I’ll come to see you of course,” he said in reply to her question.

“Come to see me? Then you’ll leave like this every night?”

He chose not to answer her on that, for he wasn’t even certain he would come to see her every night. He wanted to produce an heir, not become besotted with his wife, and he surely would become besotted if he made love to her constantly. He reached for his waistcoat and pulled it on.

Sophia stood. She crossed toward him, her bare feet padding soundlessly over the rug. All at once, she was standing naked in front of him, and he could smell her perfume. Her thick, wavy hair spilled down over her shoulders and covered her breasts; her turquoise eyes were wide and worried and brimming with anxiety.

She took hold of his waistcoat to prevent him from buttoning it, and used it to pull him forward a step.

“Tonight’s our wedding night, James. Can’t you stay a little longer?” Her voice quivered a little, then she rose up on her toes to press her lips to his.

While he kissed her in the flickering candlelight, an involuntary tremor of arousal began. He searched his frazzled mind for a reply to what she had just said—if he could even remember—and succeeded, thank God, in dragging his lips from hers. “Yes, exactly—it is our wedding night. I thought you might be sore.”

“I don’t care if I’m sore,” she said. Was she afraid to be alone? “I didn’t mind the pain the last time. In fact, in the end, I quite liked it.”

Her words were somewhat shocking for a duchess— at least any duchess he had ever imagined himself being married to—and the shock pummeled his restraint. With a deep shudder of erotic exhilaration, he found himself gathering this gloriously naked woman—who seemed to have no inhibitions sexually like most of the peeresses he knew—into his arms and covering her mouth with his own. His blood quickened in his throbbing veins. He let his hands cup her beautiful bottom, warm and fleshy to his touch. She let out a little moan of pleasure and buried her fingers in the hair at his nape, and the next thing he knew, he was tumbling her onto the soft mattress and coming down, heavy upon her, unfastening his trousers for the second time that night. He pushed them down enough to free his pulsing erection.

“Are you sure?” he asked her, as his hand traced a path down her belly to the damp center of her desire.

“Yes, if you’ll only stay…”

He realized then that this was some kind of bargaining, and his wife was a very skilled negotiator. For him, there was no backing out now, even if he wanted to. “Of course I’ll stay,” he replied, suckling her smooth chin.

Adjusting her body to fit perfectly beneath his own, he entered her just as her thighs spread wide and her long, luscious legs wrapped around his hips.

The tight heat of her womanhood took his breath, and sensation overpowered reason. He let himself enjoy all of it until he felt the oncoming white-hot flooding of his sex.

He matched her gasping climax with his own potent release, then hugged her and squeezed her beneath him in a strangely delirious state of being. For a long time, he could not think of his past or his present; it was as if he forgot who he was. He could have been a simple American merchant or a poor blacksmith in bed with his wife for all he knew.

He lifted his head to gaze into the depths of her long-lashed blue eyes. “Did you really think this was our bedchamber?” he asked her, suddenly realizing the charming, adorable sweetness of such a notion.

She smiled up at him. “I did. And it is.”

He stared at her for a startling moment, wondering what would happen if he did let himself love her. Really love her. Was there a chance everything would work out all right? That he would never become like his father or his grandfather or the great-grandfather before him. Could James actually end what was in his bloodline by simply loving her?

It was too soon to tell, so for now, he decided, the best thing for everyone was to play it safe and continue to keep his emotions in check.

* * *

Marion Langdon, the Dowager Duchess of Wentworth, sat down on a chintz chair in her boudoir at Wentworth Castle in Yorkshire. She gazed numbly at the pale blue walls framed in dark oak, the imposing family portraits hanging in precise balance upon them, and the bulky chest of drawers supporting a malachite vase that she hadn’t really looked at in years. It had a chip near the bottom. Why had she not noticed the chip before, and taken steps to have it repaired? she wondered with some irritation.

She supposed she’d become too comfortable in this room and had not noticed a great many things, and it was only a silly sentimental weakness that made her take note of them now, for as of yesterday, her fate had become a certainty: her son had taken a wife and she herself would be cast out to the east wing, where all the dowagers before her had always been cast when the new, younger duchess arrived.

She had been a new, younger duchess herself once, she recalled with some melancholy. Many, many years ago. She still remembered the day she walked into the house with Henry—proud and regal for he enjoyed the pomp of his position—and was introduced to the servants as the new mistress of the house. She recalled how her frail mother-in-law had curtsied before her. How the servants had looked upon her with uncertainty, not knowing what to expect.

She, of course, had come from a great English family of her own, and had possessed every skill necessary to manage the household of Wentworth Castle. Surely her late mother-in-law, the former dowager, had relinquished her position with confidence. She must have felt some relief to know that her son had selected a worthy successor. Though, naturally, they had never discussed such things.

She herself was not so fortunate. Off on a honeymoon in Rome—no doubt corrupting her eldest son— was a little American upstart with the manners of a savage and the surface gush to make a proper Englishwoman’s toes curl. Her American dollars—substantial as they were—were her only recommendation.

What will the servants think when she walks into the house for the first time? Marion wondered, almost wincing at the thought of it. How in heaven’s name will the girl ever learn all she needs to know, to perform the duties of her position with dignity and grace?

She will come to me for help, Marion reasoned with a hint of cruel anticipation, for James will offer no support to her.

It was a miracle he’d even gone through with the wedding. Marion had begun to believe the dukedom might pass to her younger son, Martin. Not that that would have been the end of the world, but Martin was not reliable. He was too impulsive and quick to follow his heart. He could not be depended upon to do what sometimes needed to be done.

James, however, was nothing of the sort. Sometimes Marion wondered with a hateful feeling if he even possessed a heart at all. Then again, he was his father’s son…

A knock sounded at her door. A footman entered. He presented a silver tray to her, and she reached for the letter upon it, which was sealed with silver-gray wax. The paper smelled strongly of cheap perfume—a vaguely familiar scent that caused a tightness to squeeze around Marion’s chest. She turned the letter over a few times before breaking the seal, barely noticing the footman exiting the room.